


you can't go home again

by odditycurator



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-23 00:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odditycurator/pseuds/odditycurator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the holiday prompt 'presents'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can't go home again

Corvo has never been entirely sure why the Festival of Year’s End involves  _gifts_.There are murmurs here and there, depending upon who he asks, of how it’s an echo of old pagan rituals- presents and offerings given to the Void in thanks for another year of existence. The Overseers frown upon it.   
  
So instead, gifts are given to friends and family and loved ones, and it’s the same all across the Isles. Year’s End in Gristol has some minor differences that take some getting used to, but overall it’s very much similar.  _Colder_ , though, as with most things in Gristol. And they adorn their trees- the kind that don’t grow much back home- in a weird way that he thinks must also be a relic of pagan worship. The lights are certainly pretty, though, so he warms up to it soon enough.   
  
He and Jessamine rarely take the gifts very seriously. For his first year at the Tower she gave him a very warm scarf, which did little to stop her from making fun of his shivering. When she was a little older, he gave her perfume, scented like the flowers that used to grow in his mother’s back garden. When they were a little older than that, he found himself suddenly much more concerned about finding the perfect gift for her, but even that eventually faded, partially at her explicit behest that he  _calm down_.   
  
This time, when he is in his mid-twenties and has seen plenty of Year’s Ends at the Tower come and go, she has something more elaborate planned.   
  
“Is the Lord Physician involved somehow?” he asks, as he follows her through the halls, late at night. Most everyone is asleep, save the night watch, and the air is quiet.   
  
Jessamine folds her arms, indignant, but she is failing to conceal a grin. “Corvo, it’s supposed to be a surprise. You always do this.”  
  
“It’s sort of hard  _not_  to. It’s my job to know where you are; I do notice who you’re having mysterious private conversations with.” He notices a guard looking at him as they pass and stands up a bit straighter, tries to look more professional.  
  
She sighs. “You’re impossible.” And he supposes his guess was right, because she comes to a stop outside the Lord Physician’s office. With her hand on the doorknob, she hesitates for a moment. Smiles at him, a little nervous. “I had him paint something.”   
  
It’s a bit surprising. Not quite what he expected. The last time the Lord Physician was involved in a ‘gift’ for him, he got  _shocked_  (and he’s not sure he’s yet forgiven her for it). The office is dark, what with Sokolov gone for the evening, and she clicks on the lights. He can see the silhouette of a picture frame under draped cloth on a table, and it is larger than he’d assumed. What could she possibly want painted for him-  
  
-and when she pulls off the cloth, he very abruptly understands.  
  
A sunny beach, astride a strip of vibrant sea, peaked with small white waves. Flanked by a small village in rusty brick, dotted with colorful awnings. Gulls in the bright blue sky.  
  
 _“Oh,”_ he says, because he cannot say anything else.  
  
“I just remembered when we were on that visit to Cullero and you kept telling me- you know- how much you missed Serkonos,” and she hovers over his shoulder, hands clasped, a little tentatively.   
  
His hand goes to his mouth, unconsciously. The sunlight is rendered perfectly, as bright and warm as it is in his memory, colors striking. He knows exactly what the architecture in that village would look like from the other sides, in the places he can’t see in the brushstrokes. He has run small hands over those bricks.   
  
“Not… just Serkonos,” he says, through his fingers. The words come out a little strained, like he cannot quite hold them in or get them out. “Jessamine, this is where I  _grew up._ ” Small village, on the shore, barely north of Bastillian. Few hours from the city, few minutes from the shipyards.   
  
She smiles nervously. “I hope it’s not ruined if I tell you I had to ask the Spymaster a few questions.”   
  
Corvo’s laugh trails off, gaze fixed on the painting. He feels like he’s stood in nearly this exact spot. He could walk the streets just out of frame with his eyes closed.   
  
 _(_ _smell of salt on the air, long brown hair braided down his mother’s back, warm sand between his toes, fried dough from street vendors hot and sticky in his hands. the shore is dotted with shells and the occasional bit of bone, smoothed by the waves. brand new ships launching from the docks a mile back, headed for the capital; market stalls on the beach draped in cloth, spots of lively color against the white. his mother’s laugh is high and familiar and it mixes with the gulls)_    
  
Jessamine hovers a little closer. “Is it right? We found people who lived there for him to write to-”  
  
“It’s perfect,” he says, hushed. He should elaborate, but his voice won’t work. There are so many things he wants to say, and none of them have words.   
  
He doesn’t know how he’s going to thank Sokolov, either. Buy out the contents of an entire Tyvian distillery, maybe.   
  
There is a long silence while she watches him, and then she stands up on her toes to be level with his ear. “Happy Year’s End, Corvo,” she whispers- and then _squeaks_  when he wraps his arms around her and the  _thank you, thank you, thank you_ is lost in her hair.  
  
-  
  
Years later, when he hangs up the mask and Emily prepares to return to the Tower as an Empress and not an Empress-in-waiting- when they are scouring its halls and tearing the metal shielding from its face and trying to restore everything the way it was- Sokolov requests his presence.  
  
When he shows up at the manor- walks in through the front door this time, like an actual invited guest- it is cluttered. Stacks of boxes everywhere, half-finished statues, old paintings stacked against the wall. Strange shapes under cloth that vibrate through the Void, resonate with his mind in a curious way. It is a sensation with which he is now quite familiar.   
  
The Lord Physician leads him around the debris. “Pardon the mess,” he mutters. “All sorts of things that have to be either retrieved from storage, or thrown away. Transition, you know how it is.” He doesn’t, really.   
  
They come to a closet, and Sokolov disappears inside a moment. Shuffling noises, cloth sliding against wood, mumbling. When he reappears, he is gently sliding a painting out across the floor so Corvo can see it, too large for him to feasibly carry.  
  
“They tried to throw it out with the rest of your things,” Sokolov says. “I made them let me keep it. Wasn’t about to let them throw out that much damned work.”   
  
So many years later, the sun is still just as bright and warm and vibrant as in his memory. The paint hasn’t faded- still gleams. Just the same as when she showed it to him. The same as when he saw it for the last time, before leaving to catch a ship far, far away.   
  
“I thought you might want it back,” Sokolov says, and then he chuckles. “You never knew how she  _hounded_  me about it. Wanted everything perfect, down to every inch, insisted I repaint the smallest details-”  
  
Corvo does not look up from the painting, still and quiet. The smile on Sokolov’s face disappears beneath the beard.   
  
 _(her perfume like flowers from home, hand small and delicate in his. voice echoing in his mind, familiar)_  
  
“I can have them move it back into your room,” he says. “Right where it was.”  
  
Corvo tears his eyes away, finally, wills his throat to work again. “I would- yes, that would be…” He sighs. Swallows. “Thank you.”   
  
The next day men carry it in to him, put it up on the wall where there are already hooks drilled into the wood. When they leave, he closes the door and sits alone on his bed, and he looks at it for some time.  
  
It is completely unchanged. Bright sunlight in warm tones that does not fade, after over a decade, still just the way he saw it through his own eyes. Orange and lively despite the overcast light that comes through his window and strips the colors from the walls and carpet.   
  
Her gift to him is the brightest thing in the room.


End file.
